Snow Wolf (68 page)

"Worse than a log hut in some icy
corner of Siberia?"

"It's just as cold here, believe me.
The plumbing hardly ever works. Not that I'm complaining, mind, just that in
winter your balls feel like lumps of ice."

"Rizov, get it into your thick
skull, I'm not playing games here.

"You wouldn't have me sent to Siberia,
Major Lukin. You're too kind a man. Besides, what have I done?"

Lukin nodded at the suitcases on the bed.
"That stuff's worth five years if I report you. Ten if the prosecutor's in
a bad mood. even longer if I recommend it. And believe me, I'll recommend it if
you don't cooperate."

Rizov's face drained. "Major-"

"Think about it. An old dog like you
doesn't need the hard road. Talk with your black-market friends. Use all your
charm and cunning. If anyone bought ether in the last few days I want to know
about it."

He saw the puzzled frown on Rizov's face
and said, "Someone used it to carry out a serious crime. Don't fail me on
this one or I swear I'll have you on a prison train to Archangel by
morning."

He let go of the little man and put the
empty bottle on the table. "Take this. It may help your Turkmenistan
friends remember. Tell them from me that if they don't come up with answers,
they'll be keeping you company on the train."

He took a slip of paper from his pocket
and slapped it on the table. "You have an hour, no more. Call me at this
number."

He crossed to the door and skewered Rizov
with a steely look.

"I mean it, don't fail me. One hour.
It's a matter of life and death."

The room stank like a sewer and so did
Lebel.

A blinding light blazed in the ceiling
and his body was drenched in sweat.

As he came awake in the filthy cell and
struggled to sit up he found he couldn't. He was lying on a metal table and
tied down with leather straps.

He had come awake to the sound of distant
screams and it didn't take much imagination to know where he was.

The cellars of the Lubyanka.

His body ached with pain and his mouth
felt twisted. He tasted blood on his lips. The two men had beaten him
senseless, punching and kicking him in the kidneys and stomach until the pain
was unbearable and he threw up.

Then they started on his face. Punches
and blows that made his head swim and finally left him unconscious. When he
came to they started all over again, this time with rubber hoses, until he
passed out once more.

Now he moaned and looked down at his
body. His shirt and vest were gone. And his shoes and socks, although he still
had his trousers. He had wet his pants after the painful blows to his kidneys.

He slumped back on the table.

He had been through it all before with the
Gestapo. And what worried him was that he knew the real torture hadn't ever
started yet. The men had only softened him up. The worst was yet to come.

As he lay there in agony, he tried to
consider his options He had none really, except to tell Romulka everything. And
then what? The man would probably kill him. He wondered what Romulka already
knew. Very little. Otherwise, why bring him here? He was probing, trying to
find answers.

He could hang in there playing dumb and
hope that Roniulk@ would tire of the interrogation and let him go. But he
guessed that Romulka wasn't the type to tire. Besides, the bastard seemed to
enjoy inflicting pain.

Lebel had connections in Moscow. Someone
would intervene. But when? And by then it might be too late. Confessing wouldn't
help Massey. And it wouldn't help Massey's friends Above all, it wouldn't help
Irena.

That thought worried him. Imprisoned, he
had no way of warning her.

But he wasn't going to talk. He wasn't
going to give her away. Besides, Romulka couldn't kill him. No, he just had to
hold out and deny everything. A door clanged open. Romulka came into the room
flanked by the two men who had given him the beating.

"Have you reconsidered, Lebel?"

Sweat ran down Lebel's face. He said
hoarsely, "I told you you're making a dreadful mistake ... I'm an innocent
man .. your superiors will hear of this ..."

Romulka stepped closer and gripped
Lebel's face hard. "Talk to me, you little Jew. I haven't the patience or
the time for games. You either talk or, I swear, what the Gestapo did to YOU is
nothing compared to the little treat you have in store. In fact Lebel, I can
promise you that you'll never see daylight again."

"On my life ... I don't know what
you're talking about."

"Then let's try and change
that."

Romulka stepped over to a table in the
corner. Lebel crained his neck and saw to his horror a selection of instruments
and tools of torture which made his blood run cold.

"I always find concentrating on a
man's weaknesses is the best approach."

Romulka selected an odd-looking implement
with two small cup-shaped metal scoops with leather pads inside and a screw
handle on the end.

"A little something we borrowed from
the Tsar's secret police. They considered it most effective. It's a genital
clamp. Know what it does?

Enough turns of this handle here and it
crushes a man's testicles. Splits them wide open. But slowly, very slowly, and
very painfully. Let's give it a try, shall we?"

Romulka turned to the men and nodded. One
tied a gag around Lebel's mouth, while the other pulled down his sodden
trousers and underpants.

Roniulka came forward and Lebel watched
in horror as the implement was slipped under his scrotum and secured.

He gritted his teeth as he struggled
behind the gag.

Romulka turned the screw handle and the
implement tightened around Lebel's right testicle.

There was an excruciating, sickening
pain, and Lebel felt as if a bolt of electricity had shot through his spine.
His brain exploded with agony and he saw stars and felt the nausea to the pit
of his stomach.

He screamed behind the gag and passed
out.

The large house in the Degunino district
north of Moscow was built of wood and brick and had once been the home of a
wealthy Tsarist officer, but now it was badly dilapidated and the roof leaked.

Massey sat in the front room of a shabby
second-floor apartment. It was sparsely furnished with a table and two chairs.
An iron bed and a wardrobe in the small bedroom next door were the only other
items of furniture, but there was a new valve radio sitting on a box near the
bed. The place smelled of rot and damp and it was biting cold, despite the wood
stove lit in the corner.

Massey had changed out of the uniform and
now he wore a cloth cap and a coarse, frayed suit under his overcoat. On the
table in front of him was a bowl of cabbage Soup and some fresh bread, but he
ignored the food and concentrated on the map of Moscow lying next to it.

The man seated opposite poured vodka into
two glasses and said gruffly in Russian, "You want to tell me what the
fuck's going on, Americanski?"

Massey looked up. The man was big and
red-haired and powerfully built. He wore a filthy woollen scarf around his neck
and his black suit was worn and shiny.

He was the former Ukrainian SS captain
Massey had dispatched from Munich six weeks before. It seemed so long ago
Massey had difficulty remembering the face when the man had ushered him into
the apartment. He looked older; his jaws were unshaven and his narrow eyes had
the nervous look of a man under stress.

Massey said flatly, "You got the
signal with your instructions."

"On The Voice of America. It said to
give you total assistance, that it was top priority ..."

"Then that's all you need to know.
Tell me about the dacha."

A war spent in SS uniform had taught the
Ukrainian not to argue with an order. He nodded and pointed to a place on the
map.

"Sergei's there now, covering the
place. So far it seems the occupants haven't moved."

"How many people?"

"Sergei saw two, he thinks the man
and woman you're after, but the signal said there was another woman. He hasn't
seen her, but she could be inside."

"Can we contact Sergei by
phone?"

The Ukrainian laughed. "Listen, this
is Moscow, not Munich. I was lucky to get this dump of a place a month ago
after I found work. It hasn't even got a fucking bath and I have to piss in the
sink rather than walk to the downstairs toilet. The only way Sergei and I can
keep in touch is a communal pay phone in the hallway below. Sergei has to drive
to a kiosk in a village five minutes from the dacha if he wants to contact
me." The man shrugged. "An unhelpful situation, and hardly conducive
to surveillance, but there you have it."

Massey saw the tension on the man's face.
He was living on his nerves, constantly in fear of being caught.

"How have you both been?"

The Ukrainian grimaced. "Munich
seems like a lifetime ago, but we were lucky to get here. That crippled Finnish
pilot of yours dropped us two miles from our target, in a fucking swamp that it
took us half the night to wade out of. I think the bastard did it
deliberately." He shrugged. "But we're still alive, and that counts
for something. We've both found jobs.

Lucky for you, Sergei as a delivery
driver, that's how he borrowed the van. So far, the papers your people supplied
have worked and no one's bothered us."

Massey turned back to the map. "Tell
me about the dacha."

The man took several minutes to describe
the location and the layout of the property, then Massey said, "How far is
it from here?"

"By taxi, over half an hour. But I
suggest we take public transport. It's more reliable and less conspicuous. An
hour ought to do it. Sergei can take us back."

"What if he telephones while we're
gone?"

The man shrugged. "Can't be helped,
I'm afraid. We'll have to take the risk and hope your friends stay put. But if
they move I gave Sergei orders to follow them." He hesitated. "You
still haven't told me why we're watching these people."

Massey stood and crossed to where he had
left his duffel bag. He removed a large, heavy cotton cloth and laid it on the
table. He unrolled the cloth. Inside were two Tokarev pistols with silencers
and spare magazines. There was also a disassembled Kalashnikov AK47 automatic
assault rifle with a folding stock.

The Ukrainian looked at the weapons, then
over at Massey, and grinned. "We're going to kill them?"

"You've both had weapons training so
I don't have to show you how to use these."

The Ukrainian picked up the Kalashnikov
and expertly assembled the parts. He checked the magazine and clicked it home.

"My type of weapon-lethal. You
didn't answer my question, Americanski. We're going to kill the people at the
dacha?"

"Yes."

"You don't look too happy about it."

Massey ignored the remark and picked up a
Tokarev and silencer. As he slipped the weapon and a spare magazine into his
pocket, the Ukrainian looked at him.

"I don't have to know why they're
going to die, but this is Moscow. What happens if we run into trouble and get
caught?"

Massey held the man's stare. "The
dacha's remote so it's unlikely the militia will turn up. We ought to have this
over and done with and be back here in a couple of hours, Any problems with the
militia showing up and we still finish the job, no matter what it takes. Then
we get out of there fast. I've got air transport out and I take You and your
friend with me. After this, you both have your freedom."

The Ukrainian grinned. "That sounds
better. This could turn out to be interesting. A little action won't be bad
after a month flattening my ass sitting in this dump. I've got a feeling it's
going to be just like old times for Sergei and me, killing Russkis."

Massey didn't reply, just stood there
silently, then picked up the other Tokarev, silencer and magazine and handed
them across.

"For your friend. Let's not waste
any more time."

The telephone rang on Lukin's desk. He
picked it up. Rizov's voice. "Major Lukin?"

"This is Lukin."

"I've done as you asked. One of the
Turkmenistans claims he sold a bottle of ether to a woman two days ago at the
Kazan market."

Lukin grabbed a pencil and reached for
the pad on his desk. "Did he get a description of the woman?"

"Late thirties. Matronly build.
Good-looking. Dark hair. Reasonably well dressed. The man I spoke to sometimes
sells anesthetics and drugs to the illegal abortion clinics, but this woman
wasn't one of his usual customers. And she seemed to have no shortage of
rubles."

"What about the woman's name?"

"Are you joking?"

Lukin sighed. "Come on, Rizov, there
has to be more. That description could fit a quarter of the women in
Moscow."